Peep Peep!

We have been learning about chickens all last week and this week, in preparation for the REAL LIVE eggs that our amazing PE teacher is getting for us after April vacation.  I think I might be more excited than the kids.  Really.  

Boston's Museum of Science has so many amazing displays... dinosaur fossils, live lightening displays and animal shows, but my favorite thing in the world has always been to stand outside the incubator and watch the baby chicks hatch.  I am almost beside myself knowing that we will have them right here in school to watch every.single.day!

I am trying something a bit different for me.  I am frontloading my kids with tons of information about chickens in the hope that this will help them understand the process more deeply when we actually have chicks in the classroom.  

We did tons of research by reading lots of books like these:

I am most obsessed with See How They Grow Chick.  The photographs are amazing and my kids learned so much from reading this.

We also watched three amazing videos.  I was super happy that they squeezed on through my district's YouTube education filter.

I LOVE the simplicity of this one.  The black background and timelapse really allows you to focus on what is happening!

I think it's the dramatic music on this one that kills me.  I do love the excitement of the people talking, and think it's pretty funny when the other chicks are walking in front of the camera and blocking our view of the little guy who just hatched. 

Last but not least, this one is really unique in that it is on a farm setting.  I LOVE that you get to see what Mama Hen does when the chicks are hatching in a natural setting.  I had no idea that she still sits on a bunch of her little fluffies after they hatch!

We did a "joint construction" (fancy speak for shared writing) of a chicken report.  We edited it and I printed it out.  My littles are currently in the process of illustrating it.  We are doing black and white so that I can photocopy the pages and send home a book for each child.

Here is a sneak peak of our chicken report.  How precious are these illustrations?

Please excuse the fact that I haven't erased some of the pencil marks yet!

Totally obsessed with this one.  I mean, check out that hen's eyelashes!

Swear on my life that a 5 year old drew this by himself.  Or as the Kardashians would say, "Bible!"

I can't wait to see what the rest of our book looks like :)